This invention relates generally to apparatus for positioning a patient during a medical imaging procedure, and more particularly, to apparatus for positioning a patient in a prone position during a medical imaging procedure.
Diagnostic images of a patient are acquired using one or more modalities, such as Nuclear Medicine (NM), Computed Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance (MR), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), X-ray and Ultrasound. Some procedures for imaging anatomy, particularly within the torso, require the patient to lie prone on a patient table for a length of time without moving. In some cases, for example during nuclear imaging, an examination may last for an extended duration and thus patient comfort is advantageous. In other cases, such as during nuclear imaging, patient motion may cause image artifacts, degrade image quality or necessitate repeating the data acquisition.
The patient table is often narrow to allow the imaging detector(s) to move close to the patient, such as in NM, or to move into a small bore, such as with PET and CT. When lying on the patient table in the prone position, the patient's arms are placed up and away from the body to avoid interference with the motion of the detectors around the patient's torso (in NM) and to avoid placement between the imaging detector(s) and the anatomy of interest. For example, the patient may place their head on their folded arms, looking either down at the table or to the side. Alternatively, the patient may lie with their neck extended to look forward. These positions cause neck strain and patient motion, as well as potentially limiting the breathing space and contributing to feelings of claustrophobia in some patients. Thus, the prone position is not ergonomic and can be difficult, uncomfortable, and/or painful to hold for the length of time necessary to acquire the scan, and patient movement may cause artifacts and blurring of the image.
Placing the arms on the table to the side of the body causes the effective width of the body to be enlarged—preventing the detectors from moving to within close proximity of the torso. In NM, this causes image quality degradation as image quality decreases with increased distance between the imaged organ and the detector. Moreover, the arms, and specifically the large bones in the arms, cause signal reduction due to absorption of photons in NM, PET and CT. Additionally, the arms may cause artifacts due to the absorption of photons in NM, PET and CT.
Therefore, a need exists for a positioning apparatus to comfortably position a patient in a prone position on the patient table. Certain embodiments of the present invention are intended to meet these needs and other objectives that will become apparent from the description and drawings set forth below.